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Jay Monahan named deputy commissioner of PGA Tour

06/03/10-- Photo of Jay Monahan for the Sunday, June 6, 2010 Times-Union Career Track. Community Hospice Foundation, the fundraising arm of Community Hospice of Northeast Florida, announces the addition of four new members to its board of directors: G. Ray Driver Jr., Tabitha Furyk, Jay Monahan and Craig Walker. Driver is a founding partner of Driver, McAfee, Griggs, Peek & Hawthorne, a Jacksonville law firm that focuses on corporate and real estate transactions. Furyk, wife of professional golfer Jim Furyk, is a member of the PGA Tour Wives Association as well as the committee that annually produces the Halloween Doors & More event to benefit Community PedsCare. Monahan is senior vice president of Business Development for the PGA Tour. Walker is a financial advisor and managing director-Investments at Merrill Lynch for the Chappell-Walker Group.

ORLANDO — The promotion of former Players Championship executive director Jay Monahan to deputy commissioner of the PGA Tour on Tuesday was widely seen as commissioner Tim Finchem appointing his successor when his contract expires in 2016.

And it wasn’t only media speculation.

“On the outside, it looks like that,” said six-time Tour winner Stewart Cink on the practice range at the Bay Hill Club and Lodge, the site of this week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational. “Come to think of it, that might look like that on the inside, too.”

Paul Goydos said the message seems clear to him. “I don’t have all that much familiarity with Jay, but Tim does,” Goydos said. “And obviously Tim has that knowledge and thinks highly of him.”

Monahan, 43, was The Players executive director in 2009-2010, became senior vice president for business affairs and was then promoted to executive vice president and chief marketing officer for the Tour in 2013.

Before coming to the Tour, Monahan was the executive director of the Deutsche Bank Championship in Boston, one of the FedEx Cup playoff events, and a vice president at the Fenway Sports Group. He played on the golf team at Trinity College. Monahan will report directly to Finchem, which makes him the second-most powerful executive at the Tour.

“As such, [Monahan] will move into the office of the commissioner and report directly to me, working closely on the entire scope of business operations and strategy,” Finchem said in a statement.

Messages left for Monahan through the PGA Tour communications department were not returned.

Monahan’s promotion comes two years before Finchem’s contract runs out in 2016, when he will be 69 years old. Finchem has not yet indicated if he is contemplating retirement at that time but that will give him 22 years as commissioner, a period in which he oversaw the Tiger Woods-Phil Mickelson era that led to record earnings, TV ratings and international interest in the Tour.

Finchem also directed the move of The Players to May in 2007, renovation of the course and clubhouse. He launched The First Tee initiative in 1997, the World Golf Championships in 1998 and the FedEx Cup in 2007. Finchem also presided over the completion of the World Golf Hall of Fame and the World Golf Village and total contributions to charity during his tenure so far have topped $2 billion.

Goydos, a former member of the PGA Tour Policy Board, said the commissioner’s job will still have to be thrown open for applicants when Finchem does retire.

“But Tim was more or less [former commissioner] Deane Beman’s hand-picked successor,” Goydos said. “That worked out very well.”